


Unnatural Allies

by Britpacker



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Character Study, Episode Related, Gen, Political Expediency, S01 E04 "The Good Soldier"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 07:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1257934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've spent years working for the same good cause; or have they? On the eve of victory, France's principal agent in Savoy still isn't sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unnatural Allies

**Author's Note:**

> "The Good Solider" has be my favourite episode to date: what can I say, I'm a sucker for political intrigue (particularly where Peter Capaldi is concerned)! This is my take on the motives of two principal players behind France's alliance with Savoy. I'm strongly tempted to try a scene between Richelieu and Treville during their visit to Savoy as well...

“My love, let me appeal to him on Savoy’s behalf.” 

The Duke ceased his angry pacing long enough to spin and scowl at his Duchess. “Allow my wife to bend the knee to that venomous scoundrel?” he spat. 

Gontard flinched, desperately trying to melt into a convenient tapestry. Discreetly ignoring his distress, the Duchess dipped her dark head.

“The Cardinal won’t forget I was born a Daughter of France, however much a Savoyard I’ve become. He knows I remember him as a mere bishop, when I was a girl and he served as my mother’s almoner.”

“Before he made himself useful to a more profitable patron in your impotent fool of a brother!”

“After this morning’s unseemly episode, perhaps we should be careful of heeding _malicious gossip_?” she suggested gently, unsurprised that, just for once, he should blush beneath her mild reproach. “As for Richelieu if ambition’s a sin, he may answer for it at Judgement and it’s a small enough one against the others I’ve heard laid at his door! Let me make use of our connection! All that matters now is that he holds every card in our treaty negotiations tomorrow, and we have none.”

Two pairs of eyes fixed on the shrivelling First Minister. “My informant was very certain of his facts,” Gontard wailed.

“As Richelieu said on the drive back, you blithering fool; pay a man well enough and he’ll give precisely the information he knows you want.” Large hands balled into tight fists. Gliding to position herself between them the Duchess laid a hand on her husband’s arm.

“Perhaps that’s why he favours other methods of obtaining information – again, according to rumour,” she said sweetly. “The fact remains; our behaviour since arriving in Paris has been based on false evidence, and it’s led us to slight both my brother and his first minister at every opportunity. They have every reason to punish Savoy in the most public manner imaginable. 

“And what would you prefer, my love? That I humble myself in private before that infamous villain or that he, with my brother’s full support, humiliates Savoy himself before the whole French court in the morning? We need to placate the Cardinal, and quickly. What could tickle his vanity more than to see the daughter of Henri Quatre on her knees before him?”

“You would do that?”

“For you and our country, yes.”

He swept her into his arms, a glare over her shoulder daring their observer to object. “Gontard! Make yourself useful, if you can perform _one_ errand without disgracing yourself! Go to the damned Cardinal! Tell him the Duchess of Savoy begs the _honour_ of an interview with him. _Now_ , man, not next week unless you want that tour of the Paris prisons he offered for yourself!”

“Gontard means well, my love.” Gently she kissed his ear, withdrawing with regret from his amorous embrace. “He wanted to find Cluzet even more than we did.”

“I don’t recall his ever being an ally of the Chancellor.”

“He would do anything to denigrate a country he detests as he does France,” she said dismissively. “Have you never noticed how disdainfully he looks at me?”

“You are no Frenchwoman.”

“I came to you as one.” She held his stare, her limpid gaze daring him to object. “Some men believe a woman’s loyalties immutable.”

“I know better.” With a tenderness she had never expected on first meeting the great bear her brother had commanded her marry the Duke set her back, brushing a wayward curl of dark hair from her cheek. “Go and primp yourself, my love. Even Richelieu won’t dare keep the King’s sister dangling for an audience!”

*

A spectacular sunset was glazing the windows burnished gold when, two hours later, she was led by an usher through a winding maze of passageways from the Royal Apartments to the smaller, more sparsely furnished set of rooms he used when duty kept him overnight at his master’s side. “Your Eminence is most gracious to see me at such little notice,” she murmured, head down and hands demurely folded as he rose from his desk, dismissing his man with the smallest tilt of the head. As he approached she sank into a graceful reverence, brushing her lips against the ring that glinted on his long, thin hand.

“Please, Your Grace, it’s hardly fitting for a Daughter of France to kneel before her brother’s servant.” She scanned the statement for mockery, faintly disappointed to detect none when he raised her up and carried her hand with exaggerated gallantry to his lips. “I’d offer you refreshment, but I assume you’re under orders to refuse any hospitality of mine….”

She acknowledged the dry words with an inclination of her glossy head. “I owe Your Eminence a debt of gratitude,” she said, meeting his cool, assessing grey gaze with all the assurance of her lineage despite the shiver that ran through her now she was confronted with the fearsome force of his presence, all that formidable concentration and intellect focussed on her every word and move. “Your prompt reaction to the dangerous position I found myself in five years ago very probably saved my life. Had it been possible to thank you at the time....”

“I think the debt fully paid, Your Grace. Had your husband found what he sought today many more lives might have been lost.”

And his own position would have been fatally undermined. Fearless as she’d been in escaping the palace to prevent disaster occurring, her courage failed with the words on the tip of her tongue. “The Musketeers responded admirably to my request,” she murmured. He arched a steely brow.

“As it’s their duty to defend the King’s blood, I should hope they would,” he drawled. She frowned.

“This unfortunate incident would never have happened, Cardinal, had you disposed of Cluzet when the opportunity arose,” she pointed out.

“Contrary to my rather _useful_ reputation Your Grace, I’m not a complete monster,” he replied dryly, moving to stand before the large window, his tall form rendered dark and ominous by being surrounded with the sunset’s glorious glow. “I don’t kill needlessly, and a Spanish agent of his importance might be useful to me one day. His disappearance protected your position and removed the principal opponent of a closer alliance with France. Was that not the object of the exercise?”

“As long as there’s a rumour of his being alive, my husband will search for him.”

He arched the eyebrow again and she subsided into chastened silence. How could she have forgotten the aura about this man? That glacial assurance; the sensation of those penetrating eyes, the colour of polished steel, slicing straight into her soul? Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, could make an experienced woman feel like a foolish girl. He was doing it now, Daughter of France, Duchess of Savoy and agent of her brother’s cause though she be.

“After today’s unfortunate _misunderstanding_ I trust His Grace will be more circumspect with his accusations in future,” he said smoothly, and though she was solely responsible for that embarrassment she winced from the reminder of it. “The King has been most distressed to see his hospitality so rudely abused.”

“My husband can be rash, but I assure Your Eminence he meant no offence to France.” Courtesy commanded he accept the excuse but the merest twitch of the lips expressed his real opinion eloquently enough. “And he still believes there were French hands in a plot against his position – perhaps even his life – five years ago.”

His composure never wavered. “A tragic misinterpretation, with regrettable consequences for all the parties concerned.”

“Tell me, Cardinal.” Alone in his apartments, she dared speak as she never could those years ago at her husband’s palace, surrounded by informants in the pay of Cluzet and Spain. “Was it _really_ such a misunderstanding? Was there no such plot?”

“I may be considered ruthless, but I trust Your Grace has never heard me called a fool.” He pushed himself away from the window frame, gliding to loom over her and though his face remained impassive she was conscious of the menace behind his satin tone. “Would the first minister of France be so stupid as to commit such an outrageous order to paper?”

“Cluzet believed he might.”

He dismissed the objection with a graceful wave of the hand. “Given his Imperial connections Cluzet was unlikely to react rationally to even the most oblique hint of French interference,” he said carelessly. “He behaved precisely as we expected, goading he Duke into violence....”

“And leaving himself defenceless when your agents entered his house.”

He almost - almost - smiled at her boldness. “My husband was wounded that night: he might have been killed, had the Musketeers been more alert,” she pointed out, hating the telltale tremor that wobbled through the words. “What then?”

“Why, then the Duke would have been guilty of a cowardly assault against his neighbour, doubtless encouraged by the agents of another power.” Chills ran down her spine at the meaning of his neutral reply: that he had considered the possibility; had plans in place for every contingency. “Naturally, France would have acted to preserve the independence of Savoy and the person of its infant duke. You can’t imagine your brother would have left you defenceless against such flagrant Spanish interference in your affairs?”

“Of course not.” He seemed satisfied; the tension in the air around her eased. “May I ask....”

“Once your party has left Paris he’ll be removed to a safer place.” His acute understanding of others, of their weaknesses, fears and vulnerabilities, as much as his ruthless readiness to play on them had helped raise a minor scion of the nobility to the highest ranks in Church and State alike. She was wise enough to fear him, but she couldn’t also deny a grudging sense of respect. 

Or relief. “Richelieu? Fronsac?” she suggested. Somewhere in his own hereditary territory no doubt. He favoured her with the thinnest of smiles.

“Better not to know, Your Grace,” he murmured, piercing her with a too-knowing look. “You _are_ Duchess of Savoy, after all.”

“And I love my husband. Please remember that, Your Eminence.”

That lofty head dipped in an elegant, almost regal acknowledgement. “As Almighty God commands you should, Madame. Lucky indeed is the husband whose wife dedicates herself so devotedly to his best interests.”

“His interests being served, of course, by a closer alliance with France?” she suggested delicately. 

“Indeed.”

The silence lengthened between them, he relaxed, she increasingly agitated, her breath coming short and fast as she fought for the words she needed to say. “My husband is, despite his outward confidence, a man sensitive to slights.”

“Although quite willing, it seems, to hurl them at his hosts.”

She felt herself blush but refused to look away. “We can acknowledge between ourselves there’s some truth in his suspicion of France’s actions five years ago. If your intention was never to overthrow my husband’s government it was at least to fundamentally change it.”

“In Savoy’s interests as well as those of France.” His honesty demanded respect, she supposed, at least from one who shared his views. “Which are not served by the humiliation of an ally. Rest assured Savoy will enjoy the fruits of France’s friendship for as long as she shows herself willing to receive them.”

“And the unfortunate misunderstandings that have arisen between my husband and yourself....”

He waved it away as if the matter were unimportant. “Stirred up by Monsieur Gontard for his own malicious ends – doubtless on the instruction of a hostile power. There are many people who’d pay well to keep our countries from their common destiny.”

She bit her lower lip. “My husband is not well disposed to his first minister at present, Cardinal.”

“Small wonder, considering how badly the fool's led him astray.” 

An opportunity. He had no need to say it. Despite her doubts she was buoyed by the fact that he seemed confident of her grasping it, making herself the unofficial chancellor of her husband’s principality. “Savoy will not fail her friends, Your Eminence; I give you my word as a Daughter of France.”

“Your word as Duchess of Savoy would suffice.” There was something else she had forgotten; the plausible charm he could display when it suited his purpose, softening his posture and bringing a touch of unfamiliar warmth to those chilly eyes. “France can afford to be generous, but Savoy should beware. Spain will be likely be most offended by our show of unity tomorrow.”

Even he couldn't quite keep his satisfaction out of the diplomatic observance. “So long as France is generous, Savoy will be honourable,” she promised.

“And France will be so as long as her partner is. So as Your Grace can see your concerns are groundless. This agreement is in _all_ our best interests.”

She gnawed her lower lip. “And the man who sold intelligence to Gontard?” she asked, shocked by her own bluntness. Richelieu smoothed his short grey beard.

“His identity has been established.”

“And his fate?”

“A villain who’d betray the interest of France for a handful of clipped Savoyard coin? What, I wonder, would Your Highness suggest his fate should be?”

The use of her French royal title was as calculated as the wintry smile that touched his lips. “The penalty for treason is death, I believe,” she observed.

He acknowledged the accuracy of her answer with a small bow. “The matter’s in hand; let that be enough,” he advised, almost kind now he knew he had his way on all points. “I dare say the Duke would consider it an internal matter, not to be meddled in by the representative of another state.”

“I’m sure he would.” There was nothing more to be said. Elegantly she sank into a deep curtsy; he offered his hand, bowing in his turn when her lips touched the cold surface of his ring. “And I thank Your Eminence again for your... goodwill toward our duchy.”

The arctic smile that touched his lips, leaving his eyes completely cold, chilled her to the marrow but what was done was done. They were bound together now – Cardinal and Duchess; Duke and King; France and Savoy. 

As she returned to receive the affectionate thanks of her unsuspecting husband, she could only hope it was for good and not ill.


End file.
